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Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Happy 2015!

Hello All,
I just want to thank you for reading and supporting my blog the last three years!  I know my posts have been sparse the last couple months; sometimes life just gets in the way of your hobbies.  

The blog isn’t going anywhere.  I promise to keep you smiling through 2015 – but I anticipate January and February to be just as crazy as the last couple months (the calendar say’s so already) – so my posts will be weekly for sure, twice weekly hopefully, but probably not three times a week until I blast through a few things on the home front.

That said – I hope your 2014 was a wonderful year and that your 2015 is even better.  Here’s to life changes, random improvements, lots of laughter and much happiness!

Happy New Year!!
Cheers – Me, Hubby and Miss Rosie


(2015 image borrowed from Chatelas website)

Monday, December 22, 2014

The Grinch Who Ate Christmas



I know, it’s hard to see, the picture isn’t in focus, but it’s relatively impossible to get a picture of a real live Grinch – even when you have a hold of its “sweet” little powder covered face.  I took at least ten shots – this is the best one and you still can’t really tell what’s going on – or even get a real vision of the Grinch – since she is so blurry.  

So what this verifies, just like the Lochness Monster, is that you cannot get an in focus picture of an actual mythical monster, like the Grinch. (No dogs were hurt in the attempt at picture taking, or after, really).

But trust me; she is the Grinch who stole Christmas and promptly drug it all into the bed rooms to hide under the beds.  Perhaps to await the sleigh to pick her up and fly the stuff away?  But of course, not until she sampled whatever was available for chewing open and strewing white dust (snowlike perhaps) around the house and of course herself.

I went out on errands the other day and when I came home, I came home to silence.  Silence is not something this house is familiar with.   

Pulled in the drive, no dog in the window – hmmm, odd. Get out of the car, no barking in the house, really odd.  Put key in door, no whining sing-ee noises – just SILENCE.  Come in the house, nothing, no dog anywhere.  

Start to worry, drop purse – run down hall, find wrapping paper detritus and white powder everywhere – but no dog.  Look in open door of both bedrooms, trail of goods in the walkways and leading under both beds in each room.  But no dog.

OMG, where is she, what did she eat, is she dead, what is that white stuff – is it poison, rat poison is blue and its outdoors in the garage, what is all over the house???  Where is Miss Rosie? Then a nose appears.  

A small white covered face pokes out from under the bed in the guest room, her lips making a smacking noise, her eyelashes “mascarared” a thick white goo.  I grab her, her teeth are covered in white paste – like glue – smack, smack, smack her mouth is kind of stuck in paste.  Ok, she’s not dead – what the hell did she eat?  Flour, it’s a bag of flour – why a bag of flour?

Darling hubby, who not only shopped early, but wrapped my gifts and put them under the tree, bought me a cinnamon roll kit – I love white iced cinnamon rolls and it’s so hard to find a good one anywhere (really since my Jr. High school cafeteria, who made the best ones and only charged a quarter), look in the box – holy crap, there was a package of yeast in there – had she ate that, we would have been in trouble – can we say exploding wiener dog?? KAPOWY!!

So, I collected the goods, re-wrapped what I could (thanks for ruining the surprise Grinchy-Rosie) and put the pieces of the cinnamon roll kit on the counter.  Took a rag and cleaned her teeth and eyes, but I left the rest of her cake flour coated, just felt like the right thing to do (and I was unhappy with her) and sent her to her basket.   

All was well, no poison- that is until the next night, when she chewed open my prescription bottle from the night stand and helped herself – but that’s a whole other story….. Rosie, Rosie, Rosie.

(the picture is upright on my camera, not sure why it is not here - just another part of the monster photo taking folklore I guess...)

Monday, December 15, 2014

A Swiffer and a Bounce walk into a Bar



A couple of weeks ago I hurt my back – you know, the ones that really get you when you’re doing something treacherous like turning on a light switch, or opening a piece of mail.  Yeah, that’s the one – I was leaning over the counter handing my husband his dinner plate.   I guess I was being too domestic or something – but I tweaked it a good one.  It’s now been over three weeks and it hasn’t gone away – so finally, finally I went to the doctor.  

I didn’t want to go in the beginning, because all they do is give you Flexeril (a muscle relaxer) and tell you to take it at night before you go to bed. 

It’s been about six years since I last tweaked my back (that one was set off by a sneeze) and remembered I didn’t much care for the Flexeril, but didn’t remember why.

I now remember why.  You take it when you go to bed and it’s not that it helps you go to sleep, it helps you STAY asleep – but only subconsciously. 

For the last three days in the morning my alarm goes off, but I don’t get up, I can’t get up – I am a doozey daisy.  So I turn off the alarm, but I am awake, kind of.  My eyes are closed and my brain is working it overtime.  Not your normal brain thoughts, but funky ones.  Ones you know aren’t right, because you are awake, but you are not.

I’m going to share yesterdays morning brain overdrive treat with you; the alarm goes off, I turn it off, but stay laying down.  Can’t get up really.  And in my head, playing like a movie are a Swiffer dust sheet and a Bounce laundry static sheet.   

They are on my kitchen counter, having a conversation – one is leaning against a light blue tupperware-ish container, I don’t know which one, but that is not the point.  The point is, I am conscious enough to know that a Swiffer sheet and a Bounce laundry sheet would not be having a conversation in my kitchen.  

I also know that they wouldn’t be hanging out on my kitchen counter out of their respective packaging (i.e. when they are brand new, just home from the store).  They have no purpose on the kitchen counter, I mean if it were a paper towel sheet and the Formula 409 bottle it would make more sense, but neither one are.   One goes in the dryer, the other on the end of a sweeper – totally unrelated.

So while they are conversing I am thinking this scenario is all wrong – the Swiffer lives under the kitchen sink on the first floor and the laundry sheet lives in the basement laundry room in a drawer, logistically this is impossible.  One didn’t escape from the basement drawer, walk up the stairs, open the child proofed locked cupboard door, help the Swiffer out of his package and climb up the to the kitchen counter… they have no muscles, or hands, or feet for that matter.

I am awake, but I simply can’t get up and all of this is playing out in my semi conscious brain.  Vividly.  

Obviously, if I were thinking clearly I would know that Swiffer sheets and dryer sheets can’t talk – and that would have been the end of it.  But no – I am watching this movie in my head, brain is trying to piece it together with all the other illogical points I mentioned above.  

I also think the laundry sheet is a woman and the Swiffer is a man – these were not two gossipy cleaning ladies getting together for a dish session.

I just want to say to world, don’t ever take a Flexeril at any time other than bed time, it all seems so real, even though you know it’s not.  And while my make believe story line yesterday morning entailed two harmless pieces of white fabric – yours may not – be safe – get under the covers and stay there!!  It’s such a scary world.  

And for heaven’s sake - don’t sneeze.  Next thing you know the Kleenex tissue and the Lysol wipes will be involved – all these little white sheets… should we be concerned??

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Ashes to Ashes (re-post)

Thought I'd do a re-post today.  Season is getting busy and I am getting frazzled.  You too?? Yeah, it will all be over in exactly two weeks.  Well, mostly over, if you have kids home from school you can add another week onto that... Ah - Merry, Merry thoughts!!
This post was originally from Nov 18, 2013.  Enjoy - and Cheers - Evan and I had no mishaps this year and he is already fully halfway enjoyed this holiday season. Yummo!!
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I was wondering what I was going to write about today, it’s getting later and later and inspiration hadn’t came to visit me yet.
Then, then it happened.  Tragedy really.
First I heard a clink, than a CRACK, than a trickle.  Crap, oh crap – Noooooo!
Went grocery shopping today – you know, the big shop, the one that you only do every six weeks or so, when it’s ok to spend whatever, because this is the BIG shop (as opposed to the small run for an onion, some bananas and milk).
So, I get to the checkout and I see the Christmas liquor is in stock.  Oh, yeah - Christmas liquor – when they make concoctions of things and bottle them for your holiday pleasure.  Things with cinnamon, mint, eggnog, nutmeg, chocolate, vanilla - yum.  Things that aren’t out but once a year – which is NOW!
Search, search, search – ah – there it is Evan Williams Bourbon and Eggnog blend.  OMG, this is my favorite thing of the season, but you can’t stock up – because it just doesn’t store well.  It’s eggnog and bourbon- not exactly shelf stable (I’ve tried, it become a solid gelatinous blob) – so ‘tis the season, there it is, grab a bottle- hurray!
Oooohh – WHAT IS THAT?  Kahlua Peppermint Mocha??  Yes please, we’ll have some of that too.
Uber happy with my two selections, I head to the checkout, buy all my goodies and head home.
Have I mentioned the 60 mile an hour winds we’ve had here for the last two days?  No I haven’t – well, I guess now is the time to bring them up.  Last night they blew the big doggie over while she was trying to go to the bathroom, she’s been gun-shy about going outside ever since.
Do you know where this is going?  It’s a sad, sad thing really.  I was there.
I pop open the hatch of the car, grab a few bags, spin around to leave the garage – I’m caught by a gust of wind – I hear CLINK (glass on glass) then CRACK – oooohhhh noooo, then a stream of liquor starts flowing out of the bag, onto me, the ground (and all over my husband’s frozen pizzas, sharing the bag – won’t those be interesting later on when he cooks them up)?
I drop the leaking bag and stand there looking at it in astonishment.  How?  Why?  Man…..
I go open the house to take the other bags in and the mischievous Miss Rosie shoots out the door, straight to the pool of liquor collecting on the ground – lap, lap, lap, lap. Hey wait – what, stop it, stop!
I put her in the house, to no avail; she is insistent on getting back out to lick up the tasty puddle. 
I pull the dripping pizza boxes out of the bag, run them into the house to the sink to rinse them, go back grab the leaky bag and throw the whole thing out into the trash.  All the while Rosie is getting her drink on (I should have joined her).  
So, Evan and I had a short relationship this year – it was over before it even began, not a single sip.  Guess I’ll have to put him on my Santa wish list, because six weeks from now for the next big shop – the holidays will be over and the store will no longer have him in stock.  
Oh, we could have had so much fun together – why oh why did it end so cruelly?

Friday, December 5, 2014

A Little Good, A Little Bad - It All Equals Out



Whatcha need?  Anything you want, we got it right here.

You religious?  Yeah, well we got those foot tall candles in glass jars right inside here.  Who ya want on it?  Mary, Jesus, Infant of Prague?  Come right in, we got all kinds a styles.  Any kind you want.  All right here.

Bible, you need a bible?  You’re in luck, we got your Bibles, just pick your size.  Look, you can put it right by your lit Mary candles when you are not reading it – look, look how nice that is – two candles, one Bible in the middle, set it right on your side table, impress your neighbors and family.

What else you need?  You a better?  You know, make a little bet on the side here and there?  Of course you do.  Well – this is your lucky day ‘cause we got Tip Sheets, yes we do – any kind of bet you want – odds on Vegas detail right here.  

Just grab yourself a Tip Sheet, study it real good then head down to one of Detroit’s three Casinos and place your bet – they can help.  They do betting straight to Vegas on sports, horses, whatever is popular at the moment, they got betting on it – but your gonna need a Tip Sheet.   

Yeah, if you want odds on – pick up your Tip Sheet right here, and maybe, maybe you should take your Bible along too, you know, get the big guy on your side when you place that bet  – can’t hurt – eh??

Monday, December 1, 2014

Griffin Cat


Woo Hoo – we have a Griffin and you don’t!!!!  Or do you???

We came home from a road trip the other day to find a large Griffin perched atop our 6 foot fence.   I grabbed a camera and snapped a couple shots – then called to the husband to come and have a look.

Hubby, a noted cat lover, started to walk over to the Griffin and scared it away.  Don’t know for sure if it flew or just leaped…

Not five minutes later, it was back perched atop the fence again.  So I’m guessing it flew.  Really – it’s a six foot fence and those are crazy spiky wooden pickets.
Do  you think the super popular sci-fi movies of late have finally convinced a crazy professor to create some Griffins and then released them into Detroit to go with our now large populous of pheasants, foxes and coyotes?

I’m not sure what they eat, but this one spent the whole day here, so we must have had something tasty close by – Rats perhaps??  They are very close by….. probably within direct view of where she's sitting.

Oh, you aren’t quite sure what a Griffin is?  It’s a combination eagle/lion.  Here's a statue someone created of one for your comparisons.

See, I told you we had a Griffin!